


This Way Is Not The Way

by ilyena_sylph, Merfilly



Series: Dooku the Rat [7]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Ahsoka could have been a murder kitten, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, but the Force doesn't want that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-07
Updated: 2016-06-07
Packaged: 2018-07-12 21:26:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7123144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ilyena_sylph/pseuds/ilyena_sylph, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merfilly/pseuds/Merfilly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ahsoka, adrift and still with strong feelings about the war, hasn't heard the news yet, but she's got her own plans on how to help end it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This Way Is Not The Way

She couldn't just sit around and do nothing. She wasn't a Jedi, but she had bled and sweated her way through the war too.

The news hadn't even made it to Saleucami yet where she had wound up in her aimless wandering. She'd just been searching for a meaning, for herself, when she'd been so tied up in being who she had been as Anakin's Padawan. Shili had held nothing for her, but Rex had mentioned, late one night, that there was a _vod_ on Saleucami that he had learned about life from. It had seemed like a good enough place to start.

Cut and Suu had been kind to her, but this wasn't a life for her either, and waking up to an Anakin shaped storm in her mind, the Force tearing at her, had made her too aware of it. She had nothing but her name, her severance credits, and a beat up old scout ship she had won for herself in a sabaac game. Bless the _Vod'e_ for teaching her how to play so well!

Well, she also had some liberated blasters, explosives, and a rifle. Maybe… maybe she could edge the war closer to an ending, if she could find the leaders. The nightmarish chaos inside her mind brought the idea that the Sith were no longer in control, and that meant the Separatists would be disorganized. 

Vengeance for all the deaths was a mission she could accept, to use her skills. It didn't matter that vengeance was not the Jedi way; she was not one. She never would be. She was just a warrior with no clan.

++++

Plo Koon with his 104th and the 127th had finished up the campaign at Cato Neimodia with the forces there suddenly capitulating in the face of the news of the Chancellor being the very person that had pushed the Separatist movement. Leaving just enough of a garrison in their capital to hold on until a Senatorial and Jedi negotiation force could arrive, he chose to bypass the other colony worlds belonging to Neimoidia to go for the main world itself.

Here, he only anticipated making a beachhead, but as the homeworld of one of the leaders of the Separatists, it would be a key victory to end the war. Captain Jag and Commander Wolffe were in agreement with him on this tactic, and they took their forces to an advantageous orbit, disabling satellite defenses with lightning strikes.

If they could land and hold a key point, he could wait for reinforcements, and this was what he sent back to the Council as his plan.

Obi-Wan looked over at Anakin, both of them in Council this day, as the Jedi had grudgingly confirmed the Knight's expertise on the War afforded him reason to stay on the Council, as the comm came in. Every single other unit was tied up in heavily contested fighting, but the 212th had gotten clear of its last campaign and come to Coruscant for leave. The 501st was already in garrison, taking over home guard issues due to finding heavy compulsions by Palpatine on the original unit assigned there.

"I can take the 212th back out to reinforce Master Plo," Obi-Wan said. "All intel makes it likely that Nute Gunray has fled to his own world, after all." He paused, opening himself to whatever Anakin thought on the matter.

The Senate was still bogged down in just unwinding the Chancellor's legacy. They hadn't even managed to appoint a singular Chancellor, or Vice-Chancellor when it became apparent Mas Amedda had known all along. Instead, a coalition committee was heading government affairs, and nothing was proceeding very swiftly. The Jedi had been left to pretty much continue the war on their own efforts and judgment.

Anakin didn't like it, in the slightest, but... Obi-Wan was probably right. They'd been managing -- too slowly, far too slowly -- to get Jedi healers to any units with a few hours downtime and start getting those damned things deactivated and removed (and the 212th had been almost at the top of their list). He frowned, but nodded.

"May the Force be with you, Obi-Wan," Mace Windu said. Obi-Wan nodded, and started walking out, reaching for his comm as soon as the council room sealed behind him.

"Commander," he commed to Cody. "Get everyone packed back up; we're en route for Neimoidia to reinforce General Plo Koon and his men."

"Yes sir. We'll be ready by the time you get to us, sir," Cody promised him.

++++

"Glad to have such august accompaniment," Plo Koon said, with a hint of humor inflected in his words. "Good job, Obi-Wan with your handling of that situation on Coruscant." He flicked a motion of at-ease to both Wolffe and Cody, as this was an informal briefing. "Captain Jag is holding our squadrons at strategic points for needed air strikes."

"So we noticed on our way in," Obi-Wan said. "I also keep catching a flicker of a … signature in the Force, something wilder than the usual Jedi or even Sith touches."

Plo Koon nodded and gave a long sigh. "One more reason I am relieved to have assistance. I've caught it, close to the camps, but I can't discern the individual signature, as if the person is purposefully hiding from me. If it is one of the Sith allies, and surely on this world, it would be, the canniness is the mark of a hunter."

Obi-Wan reached up to rub at his beard. "Between the two of us, I'm certain we will be able to find the Force user."

++++

Sith-spit. Bantha fodder. Karking pfassk. 

It was bad enough when she recognized the two units Plo usually worked with, but now her binocs were showing her the insignia of Obi-Wan's unit. Sneaking around one Jedi that actually knew her was hard enough.

Ahsoka kept working up curses as she started striking her small camp, some distance from the Wolfpack's camp. She'd lurked nearby, trying to pick up what intel she could. Now, she was just going to have to forge on into the city and trust in the Force. Her ship was pretty well hidden; she had covered her trail from it too. It was amazing how many skills she'd been able to turn toward hunting and finding what she wanted; how bad could it be to work her way into the city?

She shouldered her pack and shook her robe out to pull on over it all. When she could see out of it, though, she was backpedaling fast, seeing Obi-Wan standing there.

"Ahsoka," he said in even tones. "Quite adept at tracking and moving without being seen, but your shielding is not the best."

"Enough to keep _him_ from realizing who was here," she said icily. "Go away, Obi-Wan; I'm moving on already." She kept herself from saying 'Master' out of sheer will and spite; he hadn't stopped them from throwing her to the military.

"Moving on to what, Ahsoka? Cold-blooded murder in the city, if you find him? Anakin didn't even fall that far," Obi-Wan said sternly, making her flinch before she changed tactics and demanded an answer to what had happened, what she'd felt but not understood.

"What do you _mean_ , 'Anakin didn't even fall that far'?! He's --" 

"It was a very near thing, Ahsoka," Obi-Wan told her. "If Dooku hadn't actually ran his mouth effectively, Anakin likely would have killed the man in cold blood, and we'd be fighting a different war than this mop-up we're doing.

"Why you are here is beside the point now, Ahsoka. I am asking you to turn aside, and leave this in our hands. Nute Gunray must be captured and made to answer for his crimes… or at the very least, to corroborate Dooku's statements." He looked at her with his serenity wrapped around him, trying not to give over to the complex emotions he felt just to see what her choice, what the Council's actions, had brought about. He could bet she even thought she was doing something that would spare clone lives.

"He'll just slither out of it, like he has the last half-dozen times!" she snapped her protest, but... now she was a little curious. "What is the old guy saying that anyone's listening to?" Was this the source of confusion and odd images in her mind every time she tried to sleep? She couldn't effectively shut down the training bond, reluctant to lose that fragmented tie back to the life she'd had.

Obi-Wan frowned; she was a civilian… and whose fault was that, his mind kicked back at him immediately. "Darth Sidious. Who he was, evidence of it, everything. Including that the war was fabricated in order to raise Sidious up in power, playing both sides off each other solely to do so. And you're correct; He could slither out of it.

"But do you really want to throw away what _Anakin_ gave you and taught you by going the route of killing in cold blood? I understand your anger at us, but I saw how difficult it was for you to walk away from him."

She tipped her head slightly, staring across the little distance between them, those words slicing through all of her determination, all of her carefully-honed resolve and leaving her floundering more than a little. She just wanted this _ended_ , as soon as possible, and Gunray was so much a part of it... " _He_ fought for me.

"...you know who the big bad guy is? Wait, no, you said 'was'..." 

"You will not spread this around, so I will tell you." Obi-Wan would tell her near anything if she would step away from the darker path she had set for herself. "It was the Chancellor," he said softly.

Ahsoka froze completely, staring at him. "...oh, no. No. Skyguy has to be _so wrecked_..." 

"That's one word for it." Obi-Wan rubbed at his beard. "Can't imagine how much a friend might be worth to him right now."

She cast him a narrow-eyed look, knowing full well when she was being manipulated, but... Skyguy. "You're _going_ to get that kriffing sleemo? Really this time?" she demanded, convinced, now, that there were better things for her to be doing than this particular hunt. 

"Master Plo and I will catch him; all intel suggests he is here, and he is too key a figure for us to let slip away," Obi-Wan promised. "I'll have Commander Cody and Commander Wolffe take turns guarding him all the way back to Coruscant."

She nodded slowly, watching his face and eyes. "Can I get back onto Coruscant? My ship's mine legally, clean registration, but... what's it like there now?"

"You're still a citizen of Coruscant," Obi-Wan said gently. "You left voluntarily; nothing was done to your credit, to your legal status," he told her. "State your business as being with the Naboo embassy and you'll be cleared to land as soon as whomever is on staff checks your ID, since I know you're unwilling to accept the Temple as a destination… with reason, Ahsoka! Don't glare at me that way."

She subsided from the glare, nodding as she relaxed a little more. Well, in one sense. She was so worried about Skyguy that it hurt, deep in her chest, but knowing the Temple hadn't done anything to block her return... helped a little. And Gunray wouldn't get _anywhere_ with Wolffe and Cody watching him. 

Okay. She... she could leave this to him, and go to Skyguy. "All right."

"Good." Obi-Wan then gave her a small bow of his upper body, eyes holding hers. "I'll worry less about being gone, knowing you're there."

Only that it was Obi-Wan kept her from snorting in disbelief... but he would worry over Skyguy. He always did. Sometimes he was really stupid about how he showed it, but she knew he did. "Good," she said, nodding once, sharply, before she turned to leave for her ship. 

Obi-Wan watched her leave, then headed down to camp again; he wouldn't tell Plo who it was, just that it had been dealt with. He had a feeling the Kel Dorian master had been far more upset by the Council actions than he had let on where the girl was concerned.


End file.
